AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and
this week on WORDMASTER: some pronunciation rules to help make your
speech sound more natural.

RS: Back with us from Los Angeles is Nina Weinstein, author of the
English teaching book "Whaddaya Say? Guided Practice in Relaxed
Speech."

AA: Nina Weinstein says once you
learn how speed affects words, the next step is to learn how it affects
the pronunciation of sentences.

NINA WEINSTEIN:
"There are languages that have choppy rhythms. For instance, German has
a choppy rhythm, Vietnamese has a choppy rhythm. But English doesn't;
English wants to be a smooth language. So the best way to smooth out a
language, or the smoothest organization, is consonant vowel, which
explains the first rule: If there is a final consonant sound followed
by a vowel sound, the consonant sound will move over. This is
automatic; people don't think about it.

"And we have a couple of examples that we could play if you want to,
to show how the reduced forms and these pronunciation rules work
together."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "The written sentence is, 'I don't want to.' We
learn that the reduced form for 'want to' is wanna, so that's how we
get 'I don't wanna.' And then 'spend a lot of money' -- we learn that
'of' becomes 'a' if it's said at a natural speed. So we're left with 'I
don't wanna spend a lot a money.' So now we apply the sentence rules.

"We want to know how the sentence will be pronounced. So we look at
'spend a' and we know that 'spend' is said with a final consonant sound
followed by a vowel sound, 'a,' so instead of 'spend a,' we will get
'spenda': 'I don't wanna spenda.'

AA: "What's your other example there?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Well, the other example in that sentence is 'a lot
a.' So 'a lot a,' we have the 'o' sound before the 't' and the 'a'
sound after, so we have a 't' surrounded by vowels. 'T' changes to 'd,'
'd' is a final consonant.

"Usually a final consonant sound just moves over to the next vowel
sound, but we have a special case if it's a 't': we want to make sure
to look for vowel sounds or listen for vowel sounds on either side. So
we have 'spenda loda.' With 'lot,' 't' becomes 'd' and then it moves
over to the 'a.' So it's happened two times in this sentence: 'I don't
wanna spenda loda money.'"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "So 'as' ends with a 'z' or close to an 's' sound.
'Soon' begins with an 's' sound, so two of the same sound, one drops
out. And, again, it's that smoothing of the rhythm of the language. If
we stop to pronounce each sound, we're going to break the language into
a piece. So instead of 'as soon,' it becomes 'asoon.'

"Now we apply the sentence rules and we look at 'git em.' We have a
't' sound. We said whenever there's a 't,' we want to know if there are
vowel sounds on either side, which in this case there are. So 't'
becomes 'd' and then moves over to the 'em,' so instead of 'git em,' it
becomes 'gidem."

WOMAN'S VOICE: "Gidem asoon as possible. Gidem asoon as possible."

(If we move the other final consonant sounds followed by vowel
sounds, and apply reduced forms and sentence rules, it would sound like
this: "Gide ma soo nas possible," Nina Weinstein says.)

RS: "How do you go about teaching this? What would you suggest?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "First of all, I would suggest starting with the
first rule: final consonant sound followed by a vowel sound. So when
people were in class and they were listening to tapes of natural
speakers, I would write a sentence on the board, for instance. And then
analyze it, and ask them before they even thought about it or heard it
or whatever, if there's a final consonant sound in that sentence
followed by a vowel sound, and how they think it might be said. And
then play the sentence and see if it is said that way. If a native
speaker says the sentence without stopping, the final consonant sound
followed by a vowel sound is almost impossible not to do."

AA: English teacher Nina Weinstein is the author of "Whaddaya Say?
Guided Practice in Relaxed Speech," published by Longman. You can find
transcripts and audio files of all of our segments -- including this
one and our recent discussion of reduced forms -- at our Web site,
voanews.com/wordmaster.